


It's a Green Card Thing

by SmileMyBoy



Category: Beetlejuice - All Media Types, Beetlejuice - Perfect/Brown & King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Beetlejuice Has Mood Ring Hair (Beetlejuice), Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotions, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, It's going to be okay though, Not Beta Read, Panic Attacks, Verbal Abuse, beetlebabes dni, is it still murder if it's a half-demon?? probably
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-13 19:13:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 18,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28658526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmileMyBoy/pseuds/SmileMyBoy
Summary: Lydia personally thought if Beetlejuice was going to be turned back into a ghost, then she should be the one to do it as the one who had been closest to him. Which is how she had thought of it, ‘turning him back into a ghost.’ But the longer she stood there, watching him practically hyperventilating and subdued by her father, the more it was worming into her brain that the true phrase should probably be ‘murdering Beetlejuice.’
Relationships: Adam Maitland/Barbara Maitland, Beetlejuice & Everyone, Beetlejuice & Lydia Deetz, Charles Deetz/Delia Deetz
Comments: 52
Kudos: 83





	1. Enacting the Plan?

Lydia was firm in her conviction that this was the only way to stop Beetlejuice from harming her family. But watching the person she had briefly considered to be a very close friend buy into their lies of family and love, and then apparently experience true happiness for the first time ever, made her uncomfortable. She could see the hesitation on everyone else’s faces as well as Beetlejuice marveled over the sound of birds singing. But the gleeful mood couldn’t last, and Beetlejuice’s emotions quickly spiraled from naive joy to fear, to depression, and finally the anger the family had all feared.

“And that makes me so  _ angry!  _ And I don’t know how to  _ process  _ my  _ anger,  _ because we as a  _ society _ don’t teach men how to  **_process_ ** _ their  _ **_anger_ ** _!”  _ He stalked to the dining table, deftly selecting one of the knives from the place settings. 

“So let’s just try  **_MURDER_ ** !” Beetlejuice turned and leapt at the nearest living person, Charles. Charles was always a pretty tense guy, at least as far as Beetlejuice had known him, but now he looked wound tighter than a spring. And little did Beetlejuice know, he had planned for this outcome. When Beetlejuice went to stab him with the dinner knife, Charles reacted fast and caught his wrists, pressing BJ's arms up and away from his body. 

Beetlejuice immediately gave a high-pitched shriek, twisting away and dropping the knife instantly from how his wrist turned in his attempt to escape. His skin felt like it  _ burned _ where Charles touched him, the heat of living tissue was too much and resonated more deeply into Beetlejuice’s flesh than he’d ever felt before. It didn’t burn like the many fires he’d sat beside or stuck his hands in, it didn’t burn like hypothermia and ice on bare skin, it burned with a radiance he had never previously experienced. It wasn’t exactly painful, but it was  _ intense _ . He pulled and lurched back away from his former friend’s father, desperate to separate himself from the not-pain. 

Charles was shocked by the demon’s reaction but held tight, even as Beetlejuice’s momentum brought both of them to the ground. Beetlejuice thumped to the ground on his ass with Charles struggling to maintain his distance from the demon while landing on his knees. The shock of hitting the ground further confused Beetlejuice, all of the new sensations of being alive becoming truly overwhelming. The room was spinning and full of colors he had never seen before, his butt hurt - though physical pain was a more familiar sensation, and the sound of his own fast and heavy breathing was grating on his ears. And God/Satan, what was that  _ smell _ ? But the pressure of Charles’ hands had switched from unbearable to grounding and solid.

His grip was tight, tight enough that BJ vaguely registered that it was interrupting his new blood-flow and causing a bizarre tingling at the tips of his fingers. But he had been restrained many ways in his unlife, and this wasn’t a hold that was meant to cause pain or pleasure, it was just to immobilize him. So despite the vulnerability, he didn’t feel actively threatened by Charles. The anger that caused him to lash out felt a million miles away, drowned out by all of the new information and sensations. He felt himself slip under all of the feedback, losing track of himself and what was happening around him.

Lydia was shaken by the shriek, fumbling in her approach as Beetlejuice and her father fell. Behind them, Delia threw out her arms dramatically in a “wait” gesture, frantically calling Lydia and the Maitlands to a halt behind the demon. Lydia held her weapon at the ready to stab through Beetlejuice, but chose to trust her future-step-mom enough to pause. She couldn’t see what Delia could, but she secretly hoped this wouldn’t get drawn out too long. 

When she and her father were leaving the Void, they had briefly discussed the potentially violent actions they would have to take, and she knew that her dad hadn’t wanted her to take on the burden of the final blow. She personally thought if Beetlejuice was going to be turned back into a ghost, then she should be the one to do it as the one who had been closest to him. Which is how she had thought of it, ‘turning him back into a ghost.’ But the longer she stood there, watching him practically hyperventilating and subdued by her father, the more it was worming into her brain that the true phrase should probably be ‘murdering Beetlejuice.’

“Mr. Juice?” Charles reluctantly pressed, after a long moment of the demon just sitting and staring at his restrained hands with unfocused eyes. Lydia shifted behind Beetlejuice, still holding the long sharp art piece that Delia had made, but her posture had changed from battle-ready to confused consideration. Over her shoulders, Barbara and Adam watched with twin faces of anxiety, but Barbara clutched the dinner knife Beetlejuice had dropped. Charles jolted when Delia pressed her hand to his shoulder, leaning close to analyse the demon before her. He didn’t dare turn away from Beetlejuice to look at her, no matter how much he wished to.

“Beetlejuice? Can you hear us?” she pressed gently. Charles could hear the undercurrent of nerves in her voice, but apparently his fiance had slipped into life-coach mode. The demon didn’t react to either of them regardless. The hair that was still plastered to the top of his head from their wedding fanfare was vivid and rapidly shifting color, and Charles took minor comfort in the fact that it was no longer hatred red. He didn't truly know how the hair color thing worked, but he was fairly sure that red was bad news.

"Mr. Beetlejuice, you need to breathe more slowly and con-sist-ently. It's like my gu-...there is a saying, 'without oxygen, your lungs are useless. So breathe before you forget how.' Watch me and try to match me." Delia began taking exaggerated deep breaths, and slowly exhaled loudly. It took a moment before BJ's eyes even seemed to focus on her, but he began to follow her instructions.

Shortly thereafter, BJ was still breathing heavily but it had slowed down to a more consistent rhythm, and color was slowly blooming into his previously corpse-grey cheeks. Delia smiled encouragingly at him, clutching a crystal with both hands.

The warmth from Charles’ hands was spreading down Beetlejuice’s arms. The more he focused on it, the more he realized that heat was spreading from his own chest and through his body, encouraged by his more controlled breathing. He had a vague idea of where a human heart was, and if he had to guess, the heavy beating in his chest and ears was coming from his own. It had never done that before. It felt heavier than it had before, like it took up more space and had more mass now that he was alive. If his brain wasn’t so scrambled, he would make a joke about understanding how the Grinch felt. They were both green too, it would have been perfect. He would save the Grinch jokes for later, but had to say  _ something _ soon. He worked his jaw, clenching and unclenching his fists, trying to center his mind back in reality.

“Huh,” he rumbled out after what felt like an eternity. “This feels...meaningful.”  



	2. That Problem With the Netherworld

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beetlejuice wasn't killed, but that doesn't mean a certain full-demon has forgotten the Deetz' adventure in the Abyss.

After a brief moment of poignant silence, a door to the Netherworld slammed open. The skeletal dancers from their previous musical numbers spilled out, frantically waving their arms and clattering. The humans and ghosts jumped, but the newly alive demon was too used to this sort of nonsense to be phased. Nothing would ever compare to becoming alive. Beetlejuice squinted at them, knowing that he was the only one who had a chance at understanding them. Though Lydia was pretty good at charades. Still, he needed to pull himself together, and fast. The skeletons gestured at the door they had slammed shut behind them, then mimicked running and kicking a door down.

“S’mthin’s coming?” he guessed, causing them to nod in unison. “Somethin’ what? Be more sp’cific,” he growled as best he could while slurring. Who knew what being seen like this would do to his reputation? The skeletons gestured in frustration, but after a moment of mimed thought, one hunched comically low and mimed smoking a cigarette. A second skeleton held their fingers behind the first’s head to symbolize horns.

Charles and Delia watched the color that Beetlejuice’s face had gained rapidly drain. The color in his hair started turning purple, black and white, a distinct shift from the green, teal, and yellow it had been before. He renewed his efforts to pull his wrists free from Charles’ grasp, succeeding in getting one loose only for Charles to snatch up his hand. Beetlejuice could have purred from the platonic intimate contact, or lurched forward to kiss Charles and hopefully change it from platonic to  _ not _ , but he was too occupied being truly scared out of his mind for the first time in his new life. 

“Let me  _ go _ , we need to  _ leave!”  _ The skeletons backed him up, nodding and making shooing motions at the family.

“ _ Beetlejuice!” _ Lydia rounded to properly face him, briefly making him freeze. He took in the makeshift weapon she held and felt a strange mixture of pride and hurt as he realized whom it was for.

“What’s going on? Talk to me!” Lydia handed the art piece to Adam and gathered the skirts of her wedding dress to kneel down beside the demon. Charles hissed at her to not get so close, but she disregarded him. Her realization that she had been ready to murder someone, someone who was at least part demon but was still a  _ person, _ had softened her heart to Beetlejuice’s plight. He’d been her friend, he’d stopped her from making a massive mistake with her life, and he was the most lonely person she had ever met. It didn’t change all of the cruel things he had done, but it meant that maybe she shouldn’t jump immediately to murder as justice served.

“ _ Juno, _ ” Beetlejuice stressed. “ _ Juno,  _ my  _ ma _ is coming  _ here! _ Did you let her see you in the Netherworld?” Lydia ignored the chorus of ‘your mother?!’ ringing out from the adults around her.

“Yeah, so what? We escaped, what can she do to us in the living world?” Beetlejuice focused, getting enough of a grasp on his remaining power now that he was a part human part demon and not a ghost-demon to make the wrist still captured by Charles’ hand slimy.

“Ugh!” the man cried out, releasing his grip to try and flick the slime off of his hand. Meanwhile, Beetlejuice took his chance to use his freed hand to grip Lydia’s shoulder. He instantly had the tip of the bad art and the dinner knife he had previously wielded pressed to his throat by the ghosts behind him, but he paid them no heed. If he had, he might’ve felt proud of them for being able to interact with physical objects, and for growing the backbones to actively threaten someone.

“She can kill all of you and force us into the Netherworld, that’s  _ what!  _ You were in her realm, she considers you  _ her property  _ now! And who knows how she’ll respond to, to  _ this!”  _ he gestured at his entire being. 

“Property?” Adam echoed, pulling the art away from the demon. Delia reached out, prying BJ's hand from Lydia’s shoulder and holding it in her own. Beetlejuice looked up at her with a raised eyebrow, glancing between her hand and Charles’ hand holding his.

“Debbie, I’m flattered, but now isn’t really the time for a threesome.”

“Gross,” Lydia wrinkled her nose and stood up to put some distance between herself and that comment, pacing in her worry. She and her father had barely escaped the Abyss, and now the ruler of the Abyss was coming to her home?

“Beetlejuice, how do we fight her?” Delia asked, looking intensely into his eyes. The eye contact and hand holding was overwhelming to Beetlejuice, but it distracted him from the suffocating fear in his chest.

“You can’t kill a full demon like her,” he stated, not looking away from her. He could still feel the knife Barbara held on him and knew that Adam definitely still had his weapon even if he wasn’t actively threatening him with it. He forced himself to focus on how open Delia’s eyes were and the protective force behind them, rather than the fact that he had just admitted that they could totally kill  _ him,  _ a half-demon. 

“But..?” Delia prompted, squeezing his hand.

“But…” he glanced around, thinking of everything that had happened in this house and his own blossoming need to protect the strange and unusual people in it. He landed on Lydia, who was crossing and uncrossing her arms, trying to hide her own fear. He remembered how much fun it had been teaching her about ghost things, and an idea sparked in his mind. 

The people gathered around him could tell something was different when BJ’s hair settled firmly on a vibrant green, more vibrant than they had previously ever seen.

“But I have an idea on how to make sure she leaves you alone.”

Beetlejuice tried to scramble up, but his body still felt new to him so Charles and Delia ended up hauling him from the ground. Delia released his hand and he used his new freedom of movement to turn and face Barbara and Adam. They both still held their weapons, but their grips were relaxed. If BJ were being optimistic, he’d say that they were only holding them in anticipation of the upcoming fight with his mother and not to threaten him.

“A-Dog, B-Town, I need one of you to open the front door!”

“A door to the Netherworld?” Adam tried to clarify, exasperated.

“No, the regular front door! Ghosts can’t leave their places of death, so if you open the door it will lead to the Wasteland! Don't you remember?” 

“Why would we want to go there?” Barbara stood up to him, unimpressed. 

“Because I might be able to get a sandworm to come and eat my ma!” he exclaimed with a big grin. A cowboy hat puffed into existence atop his head, his hair becoming ungelled in the same moment. 

“‘ _ Might? _ ’” Charles stressed, still hanging onto Beetejuice’s hand, while Adam echoed “Sandworm?”

“Stop being such a stiff, Chuck! You got any bett’r ideas?” he faltered slightly before righting himself. “You all stay here and distract her, and I’ll come back with the giant snake artillery!” Lydia scoffed behind him, marching up to get into Beetejuice’s face. The comment had instantly reignited the hurt and anger in her from every time Beetlejuice had tricked and betrayed her.

“We all stay here while you  _ leave _ ? How do we know this isn’t just  _ another _ bait and switch?” she growled at him. Charles tried to pull BJ away from her by the hand he still hung onto, but Beetlejuice firmly held his ground and equally got into Lydia's face.

“Because,  _ Lydia _ ! **_I don’t want you to die_ ** !”

After a beat of heavy silence, he pulled back, biting his lip. He felt his hand sweating in Charles’ and faltered further, stepping back from Lydia and pulling free from Charles’ slackened grip. Lydia looked at the ground and shuffled, clenching and unclenching her fists in her dress. Her flame of anger had been snuffed out, making room for the guilt of almost murdering him to resume eating at her.

“Someone should go with you,” Delia broke the silence. Charles shot her a look making her pout and gesture wildly at BJ. “Look at him! He’s swinging between powerful and barely standing up!” 

The skeletons, who had been awkwardly observing, clattered to get their attention and collectively gestured to their wrists. They were running out of time. 

“We’ll go with you!” Adam burst out, dropping the art he clutched to the ground. Barbara looked at him incredulously, but he straightened up and puffed his chest. “Maitlands 2.0!” His wife considered him, searching his eyes before nodding firmly.

“Okay,” she delicately handed the knife she’d held to Delia, who fumbled to put it down somewhere safe. “You said the sandworms eat ghosts, right? So maybe us being with you will lure one to us more quickly.”

“Alright!” Beetlejuice put on an exuberant facade and snapped his fingers, causing cowboy hats to manifest on Barbara and Adam’s heads. Adam’s hat said “SEXY” across the front of the band, but Barbara and Beetlejuice’s hats were blank. BJ turned to the living members of the family and saluted.

“You got this! Don’t die!”

Immediately, there was a bang and the lights flickered, smoke flowing out of the wall now sporting an open door to the Netherworld. 

  
“ _ Beetlejuice!  _ I should have  _ guessed  _ that you were mixed up in all this!  _ God, _ you’re such a screw up!!"


	3. Demon Mom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Juno is here, and she's determined to put things back to how they should be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Canon-typical verbal abuse by Juno, physical violence

Beetlejuice felt his knees trembling but forced himself to remain upright. He removed his cowboy hat, hoping to prevent a lecture about hat etiquette on top of everything else. The movement also camouflaged him motioning Lydia to shelter behind him.

"Geeze, ma, I'm not responsible for  _ everything _ that goes wrong in the Netherworld! Why do you have to be so hard on me?" BJ tried to hold onto bravado, but he always felt like a stupid, whiny child in front of his mother. He was already regretting removing his hat and no doubt exposing some hair color she would disapprove of.

"You're responsible for  _ enough _ of it, you useless embarrassment. What is it this time? Are you still playing at being a " _ bio-exorcist"?” _ she sneered before taking a proper look around. Beetlejuice worried the brim of his hat in his hands, his claws digging into the wool. 

Juno squinted at the Maitlands, no doubt realizing that they were AWOL newly-deads, and tsked. Adam and Barbara linked hands and huddled closer to Lydia, glaring at the demon but still afraid of her. Juno took a drag of her cigarette while giving Delia and Charles a vague once over, uninterested but noting Charles, before seeing Lydia's dress poking out from behind Beetlejuice. She raised an eyebrow, preparing a comment about his outfit and hair color, before truly looking at her son and drawing a horrified breath.

“Ma, bio-exorcism is an important job for-” he began to give the same spiel he’d been using with her for decades but was cut off by her ragged gasp.

"What have you  _ done  _ to yourself? Is that heart I hear hammering  _ yours _ ?" she screeched, smoke billowing from her slit throat.

"I-I thought part of the curse you gave me was that you expected me to earn being alive by getting around it?"

" _ No,  _ you  _ idiot child, _ I thought it would impede your desperate search for love until you learned your lesson and  _ gave up!" _

BJ gaped at her and stuttered the beginning of a response, but Juno interrupted him again by tossing her cigarette to the ground and stomping down on it, grinding it into the flooring. Behind Beetlejuice, Adam growled something about the hardwood being original, but he was ignored.

"I can't _believe_ that you've hung onto this _stupid_ dream of _living_ for all these decades _._ Life's a shitty bitch and then you die, Lawrence, you _know_ this. I was doing you a favor birthing you dead in the Netherworld. Being alive isn't going to change _you,_ _or_ the fact that _no one loves you_!"

The Maitlands and Delia gasped, struggling to believe the open cruelty of the woman before them. Charles reeled back as if he'd been struck by Juno's words, slowly sidling to put himself more in the path between her, BJ and Lydia. Lydia herself remained where she was hidden by Beetlejuice and flanked by the Maitlands, but her hands shook with rage.

"You're-you're  _ wrong, _ I've only been alive for less than twenty minutes, and it is a wild ride! I don't know how you do it," he darted his eyes to Charles and Delia before looking back to his mother. You never took your eyes off a predator for long, especially when you were the prey. "All these emotions and sensations. All of the colors and the sounds and smells. Life may not be all sunshine and rainbows, but it's still worth experiencing! And I won’t listen to you telling me that I’m wrong just because you hate the living!"

Juno just shook her head, putting on a false air of disappointment. She looked like she was already itching for another cigarette.

"Oh Lawrence, you didn't even try to argue that these souls care about you," she sighed condescendingly. "I don't know how you tricked them into helping you, but we're going to set all this right again. _Everyone_ here is going _back to the Netherworld_ where they **_belong!_** _"_ Her voice grew deep and resonating, her presence in the room seeming to grow larger.

Beetlejuice was shaken to his core, the fear he'd always had of his mother nearly paralyzing him. But the direct threat to everyone else sparked an intense rage inside him. He widened his stance and curled his arms protectively out at each side, trying to make himself big enough to protect the people behind him without actually stretching in size.

" **_No. I won’t let you."_ ** His voice resonated like his mother's, though more gravelly.

" **_You won't 'let me'? You dare try to defy me?!"_ ** she screeched.

"He does!" Lydia finally burst, popping up from behind BJ’s shoulder. "He's not afraid of you, and we  _ do _ care about him! He may be disgusting, inside and out, but he's my friend, you _ bitch _ !"

Beetlejuice winced. Juno firecely growled and began to grow in size. She quickly towered over them all, even still hunched. She billowed smoke, bat wings sprouting from her back and her teeth and claws growing to threatening points. She blinked and revealed yellow, snake-like eyes behind her glasses. With a quick swing of one hand, everyone but Lydia found themselves thrown to the other side of the living room. Charles caught Delia and cushioned her fall, but smacked his head hard into the ground while rolling with the momentum. This knocked him out and left Delia pinned beneath his much larger body. Beetlejuice, Barbara and Adam crashed into the front wall in a tangle of limbs and strewn cowboy hats.

“Beetlejuice, are you okay?” Barbara whispered to him. He was only just getting a hold of himself, being thrown like that had to have added to his confusion, not to mention hurt. He popped his head up from where his face was pressed into the floor, eyes only on his mother and Lydia squaring up. 

“Change of plans!” he growled back, pulling himself achingly from the ground. His hair was streaked white and black again, but the tips were steadily growing red. “You two have to get the sandworm without me. Time works differently in the Wasteland, if you go now, you should be back in time!” Not allowing them any time to ask questions, he charged back at his mother.

“Beetlejuice! Back in time for what?!” Adam hissed at him nonetheless. Barbara squared her shoulders. She grabbed Adam by the hand and, without any fanfare, pulled them through the front door and into the Wasteland.

“Hey,  _ ma! _ ” BJ yelled. He tried to run in front of Lydia to shield her, but found himself slipping and sliding to a stop before her on his knees. He went with it and stretched out provocatively, knowing it would bring his mother’s ire back to himself. “You wouldn’t kill some humans before killing your worthless son, would yah?”

Juno’s face twisted into a sneer, her wings beating restlessly behind her and stirring the fog in the room. “Oh, Lawrence, I tried to teach you to stamp out your disgusting emotions, or at least hide them. But between your bleeding heart and your ridiculous hair, you were always so transparent.” 

“Unlike this smoke! You’re really obscuring the view of the audience,” he mused and focused hard on teleporting. He popped out of existence on the floor and onto her shoulder. His organs felt weird in a way they never had before, but he ignored it like he ignored the hurt from his mother’s commentary. 

“There, they should be able to see me now.” Juno shrieked and made to grab him, but he took advantage of her gargantuan size slowing her down and teleported back to the ground. When he landed, there were five versions of him, all forming a wall in front of Lydia.

Another clone, Lydia could tell because they didn’t look quite right, hooked an arm through hers and walked her backwards, putting distance between her and the fight. “No, I want to help!” she insisted, but the clone just shook their head vehemently. While backing up, she nearly tripped over Delia’s bad art piece.

Beetlejuice and Juno were playing a deadly game of Whack-o-Mole, with BJ starring as the mole. Juno would pick a scurrying clone to smash, and every time it was wrong more would puff into existence. But each time, the clones looked less and less like Beetlejuice, clearly displaying the strain he was under. Not to mention that the floor shaking was challenging BJ's precarious balance.

“Your eyesight is going in your old age!” the real BJ crowed, feeling bold, but he quickly regretted it. His mother’s eyes immediately snapped to him, and she brought her fist down on him hard. Beetlejuice released a short cry as he was crushed into the ground. He barely had time to be thankful that Charles had fixed the support of the floor, or he'd be traveling right down into the basement like the Maitlands had.

“Beetlejuice!” Lydia cried. The clone supporting her disappeared, so she bent and picked up the makeshift art weapon and pointed it at Juno. Juno was hunched forward, fist still pinning Beetlejuice to the ground and making herself an easy target for Lydia. She threw it with all of her strength and managed to impale Juno through her chest, where her heart should have been. The demon looked down at it and plucked it out easily, ignoring the black blood that spurted out and stained her dress suit. The hole in her torso closed near instantly.

“ **_Hah!_ ** ” Juno cackled, tossing Lydia’s weapon aside like a used toothpick.. “Don’t make me  _ laugh _ , human! That was almost more pathetic than my son!” She took a moment to chortle before settling to really look at Lydia. 

“So you’re the unlucky girl who helped my son,” she tsked. “I don’t know what you see in him, frankly. Stabbing the giant ruler of the Netherworld and the Abyss? You’re  _ much _ stronger than he is.” She finally lifted her fist up from BJ’s body, pulling herself upright once more. He didn’t move.

“ _ Beetlejuice!”  _ Lydia screamed, horrified. 

“Whatever he promised you, it isn’t going to happen. He doesn’t know how to do _anything_ right. _I think_ ** _I’ll kill you first as a reminder to him of that!”_** Juno growled. She pulled herself upright, taking in a deep breath. 

“ **_Beetlejuice_ ** !” Lydia screamed again. She wanted to rush to him, or at Juno, or in any direction away from here, but terror and a sense of helplessness had rooted her feet to the floor. 

Even though Beetlejuice was now part living human, the curse of his name still held. Hearing Lydia yell his name three times uninterrupted awoke him and made him snap his head up to witness what was about to happen.

“ **_No!”_ **

Juno unhinged her jaw with a massive scream, and a ball of dense, sparking smoke billowing out at Lydia. Lydia crossed her arms in front of her face, shying away, but knew in her heart that it was no use. Beetlejuice tried to teleport to her, but he was too hurt and worn from the day’s events. He made it halfway and landed on his bruised knees, reaching out for his only friend.

**_“LYDIA!”_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shhh, cliff-hanger, I know, but hang onto your seats! I'm not done playing with the vague rules of demons and ghosts.


	4. Maitland Misadventures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adam and Barbara have some talk to talk, and a lot to talk about.

Barbara and Adam had resolved to never leave their house again. When Beetlejuice warned them that ghosts couldn’t leave their resting places, and later showed Lydia exactly what happens when a ghost tries to leave, they accepted their newfound reclusion and put all worries about the Wasteland out of their minds.It was no use stressing about something that would never happen, right? 

As most best laid plans by Maitlands, it didn’t work out like that.

The desert before them was hot and dry, enough to affect even them. It was the most warmth they had experienced since dying. The occasional breeze blew sand off the tops of dunes, but otherwise the air was dead still. Which sounded like a joke that Beetlejuice would make. Adam sighed and gripped Barbara’s hand tightly.

“So do we just start walking and hope to come across a giant snake thing we only know as a ‘sandworm’? What do we do when we find it?”

“We’ll probably have to possess it, it’s one of the few ghost things we really know how to do,” Barbara mused. She looked back at the now free-standing door they had come through, green-lit fog gently billowing from the edges. “We shouldn’t go too far from the door, we can’t teleport like Beetlejuice can.”

“Do you think that's a demon power thing, or a ghost power thing we haven’t learned yet?” Adam pondered, starting forward away from the door.

“I’m not sure!” Barbara chirped. “We haven’t made it too far into the newly-dead guide book, maybe it covers ghost powers further in.”

“That book should  _ really _ have an index,” Adam griped. It made Barbara smile, knowing that Adam was the same-ol’ Adam, Maitlands 2.0 or not. Alive or not. Her smile faded, thinking about the book and their current state of being. That led to thinking about how the book had been used against her when she’d least expected it, and the hurt she was still internally reeling from. Walking for what felt like thirty minutes, it built up inside her along with the worry for the Deetz’ and Beetlejuice back in the living world, to the point where she couldn’t hold it in anymore.

“I can’t believe the book has exorcism instructions in it. I mean, it’s a book  _ for _ ghosts, not-not for exorcists in training!” she burst out and stopped walking. “Didn’t Beetlejuice say he was a  _ bio- _ exorcist? He was supposed to be  _ helping  _ us, even--even if it was for his own gain in the end! He said he’d help us to earn his favor.” She rubbed her eyes to stem the feeling of tears building.

“Well,” Adam floundered, turning to face Babs and rubbing his hands up and down her arms to comfort her. They were adjusting to how cold they both were all the time, but here in the hot Wasteland, it was even more apparent than in the living world and negatively affected the comfort in the gesture.

“I don’t think he understood real emotions before today,” he offered slowly. “I’m no  _ psychologist,  _ but a man who has never experienced happiness can’t really know how to interact with people. And we both saw how quickly his whole mood could change, and how he would suddenly lose all faith or interest in something. Like, like how he-he lost faith in us scaring living people,” he stuttered, struggling with the vulnerability of being honest about what happened. He took a deep breath.

“Maybe it’s like how physical sensation is different for us now. Everything is muted, right?” Barbara nodded. “Maybe his emotions were only skin-deep compared to ours. Easily changed. He and Lydia were getting along great, and then he suddenly started with the whole ‘bait and switch’ thing. Maybe he lost faith in Lydia too and knew we wanted him gone since he was a bad influence on her?” he shrugged.

“That’s a lot of ‘maybe’s’,” Barbara pouted but quickly brightened. “But I’d say that’s a very astute analysis, mister not-a-psychologist,” she teased, leaning in to hug him. Adam chuckled and hugged back tightly, relaxing now that he seemed to have helped his wife. He was also happy to be discussing the enigma that was Beetlejuice’s behavior. 

“Do you remember the fairytale we had to read for that book club we joined?” Barbara asked, looking up at him. She pulled away and they resumed walking, turning around to follow their footsteps in the sand back to the door.

“And how reading a fairytale made us panic about having kids and quit that book club before attending any meetings even though we had read the whole book?”

“ _ Yes,  _ that book club. In it, the fairies could only experience one emotion at a time because they’re so small. When Beetlejuice was a ghost, his hair was only ever one color, and when he was living it was multiple. Maybe half-demons’ emotions are similar to those fairies?” she suggested.

“Maybe!” Adam laughed. “But I think mood ring hair and fairy-emotions are a little far-fetched, Barbara.” Babs pouted and gently elbowed him, which only made him laugh more.

“Hey, how do you know? Your theory had  _ way _ more ‘maybe’s’!”

“Fair,” he allowed. “As for the book having exorcism instructions in it, it seems to me that a lot of the rules and regulations concerning the afterlife and death are strange and unusual, and not in the good way.” The mood instantly went back to being somber.

“Did it-? Well, obviously it hurt,” Adam aborted his question, clearing his throat reflexively. “It...It really hurt to see you in pain like that and-and to learn that  _ he _ did it on purpose.” Barbara didn’t look at him, continuing to watch the footsteps they were following. Was this really the way they had walked?

“It was agonizing,” she admitted quietly. “It was like all the sensation I've been missing was back, and every nerve was on fire. I don’t-...I wish I understood why he would do that. Why would he hurt Lydia and I like that?” She was practically whispering by the time she was done talking.

Adam gazed at her, lost as to how to comfort her. Barbara physically shook herself, dismissing the thought process. She and Adam had speculated all they could about BJ. They would only end up going in circles if they kept trying to figure him out without talking to him about it. And if Beetlejuice were here, he’d probably say something about how the fanfiction author could only allow the Maitlands to be so insightful before it became utterly unrealistic.

“Is this really the way we walked?” Barbara changed the subject and tugged Adam to a stop by their linked hands. “I thought we were walking more...linearly.” She and Adam really looked at the footsteps and realized that yes, they definitely curved and changed direction more than they had traveled. The door was nowhere in sight.

“Oh no,” Adam gasped, horrified. “Are we  _ lost? _ In the  _ Wasteland??” _

“Don’t panic,” Barbara tried to soothe him, but was also steadily beginning to panic. Adam pulled his hand from her’s to bury his fingers in his hair.

“We’ve already been gone for so long! We’re never going to get back in time, scr-screw what Beetlejuice said!” Adam was spiralling quickly. It felt like fear was consuming and radiating off of him.

Then the ground was shaking tremendously. Twenty feet in front of them, the sand and rock rose and broke apart, detritus flying in every direction. A giant, black and white striped snake drilled upward and was soon staring at the two ghosts hungrily. It couldn’t be anything but a sandworm. The fear in the air around them was practically tangible now, and a forked, striped tongue flicked out of the sandworm’s mouth to taste it. Adam and Barbara gaped up at it.

When a second head emerged from its mouth to roar at them, Barbara gripped Adam’s shoulder and shook him hard.

“We have to possess it! Quickly, think-think about riding it like cowboys!” she shrilly ordered. The cowboy gag was the only thing she could think of. She and Adam separately thought hard and projected the mental image of them riding the sandworm's back at the creature.

The sandworm froze and seemed to consider their possession attempt before letting it wash over itself. It rose further out of the ground and forward, curling along the ground to stop with its body before them.

The Maitlands were gobsmacked that it worked. But they didn’t let that delay them long, scrambling to saddle up on the creature. As Adam straddled the alien-demon-worm-thing behind his wife, he privately and somewhat hysterically mused that they should really have the cowboy hats Beetlejuice had made them. The next thing he knew, he and Barbara were both wearing white cowboy hats. This only further shocked them, but they forced themselves to focus.

  
“Uh,” Barbara started eloquently. “To kill a demon?” She pictured the door, their house, and Juno, and pressed her heels in as if spurring a horse. The next thing they knew, they were zipping across the Wasteland, near instantly encroaching on the door they’d left behind. The door that was still  _ closed. _ Barbara shrieked, and Adam threw out his hand as if to stop their wild ride, and blew the door open seconds before the sandworm’s head would have breached it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Peter B. Parker voice* Everyone knows that the best way to learn is under intense, life-threatening pressure!


	5. Perks of an Unholy Green Card

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sandy the Sandworm gets her dinner, and consequences of unholy matrimony are discussed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title comes into play!

Lydia crossed her arms in front of her face and shied away from Juno's blast, but knew it was for nothing. She was going to be engulfed by the sparking smoke ball, and there was nothing she could do about it. As she squeezed her eyes shut and thought about dead mom, her dad, Delia, Adam, Barbara, and Beetlejuice, she could only prepare for the worst. She heard people screaming her name-Beetlejuice and Delia?- and tried not to think of the heartbreak she'd cause by dying. Something she hadn't truly considered when she'd been ready to swan dive off of her roof.

But when the blast of eldritch smoke and energy should have hit her, a green shield spread around her and absorbed the blast.

" **_WHAT?!"_ ** Juno screeched, unwilling to believe that the little twerp human in front of her was still alive. Before she could try again, the front door of the house burst open. Adam and Barbara rode in on the giant sandworm, who saw Juno and salivated at the chance to eat a demon of her pedigree. The ghosts leapt off its back before it reared and charged at Juno, wrapping around her like a boa constrictor. Once thoroughly incapacitated, the sandworm began yanking her back through the door to the Wasteland. The laws of volume and mass warped around them to allow their travel through the door frame, and it was headache inducing to watch.

The entire time Juno yelled and cursed, promising to return for Beetlejuice's heart on a pike, but the way her speech got cut off by the sandworm wrapping around her throat undermined her threats. Beetlejuice rumbled out a quiet "bye, ma" before the door slammed shut behind Juno and the sandworm, sealing the demon's fate.

Beetlejuice practically swooned on his knees, sagging in relief before staggering to run over and embrace Lydia. Lydia wasn't typically a big hugger but she gratefully accepted this one, just this once. BJ clutched Lydia close, burying his face into her shoulder to hide his first-ever tears. His hair, which had been completely white when he thought Lydia was a goner was now bright green again. Lydia wouldn't tell anyone about his tears, since she was also rubbing them out of her own eyes.

"Guess we both have dead moms now, eh Lydia?" he weakly joked. Lydia snorted a laugh anyway and squeezed him tighter, in too much shock to care about the crassness of the joke.

"What happened?" Barbara cried as she and Adam helped prop a slowly stirring Charles up and off of Delia. Once freed, Delia scurried to the front door and locked it, as if that would prevent anymore demonic invaders. Then she rushed at Beetlejuice and Lydia's embrace, crashing into them in her hurry to join the hug.

BJ yelped when she collided with him, pulling away from Lydia enough to look at Delia and covertly rub his eyes.

"Geeze, Daisy Dukes, are you practicing your wrestling moves? That was one powerful bodyslam!" he griped, but wrapped a third arm around her too when Lydia released one of her arms from around him to grip her stepmom.

"What just happened? I'm so unbelievably happy that you're alive, Lydia, but I thought that you were ab-so-lute-ly done for!"

"Yeah, Beetlejuice, could you always make shields like that?" Lydia questioned, discreetly wiping her nose before looking up at him.

"I can’t make shields. I’m pretty sure that was an effect of us being green-card-married." Everyone conscious enough around him yelled "what?!" making him wince. He nestled closer to Lydia and Delia for comfort, not that he'd ever admit it, before elaborating.

"Look, by green-card marrying me, you vouched for me to the living world, yeah? Well, the same extends to you, I vouched for you in the Netherworld. The only human who can kill me is you, and the only Netherworld creature that can hurt or kill you is  _ me. _ "

"You seem pretty hurt to me," Lydia mused, prodding at his side and eliciting a wince from Beetlejuice. He flinched away and finally broke the embrace to cradle his body. He was starting to tremble from the adrenaline crash and didn't know how to handle it. The green of his hair was fading from vibrant to sickly and dull. More the shade it had been as a ghost.

"I didn't say no one could hurt  _ me, _ just that no nether-creature can hurt  _ you. _ Humans and other creatures can hurt or kill me, but I'll just heal from those wounds. But my demon-healing won't heal wounds from you, so…" he petered off, unwilling to say it out loud again that Lydia could choose to kill him. Not when he was very aware that she nearly had.

"And when  _ exactly  _ were you planning on telling us this?" Barbara growled, tempted to punch BJ's arm but holding back upon seeing how hurt he was. She and Adam had helped support Charles over to the group, but she was sure she could have let Adam take the brunt of holding him up if need be. 

It made her more than a little uncomfortable to know that she and Adam would have failed at killing Beetlejuice had they felt that it was necessary to protect Lydia from him earlier. The original plan to trick him into thinking the marriage was real and that the Deetz’ and Maitlands were happy and approving of it had also revolved around one of them killing him once he was part human, and all of the adults had been hoping that  _ wouldn’t  _ be Lydia. What would have happened if one of them had tried and failed?

"Uhhh, never? I'd planned to leave once I started breathing, but the onslaught of  _ feelings  _ and my ma got in the way of that. You guys don't want me around, and I won't stay where I'm not wanted," he shrugged. "Plus I wasn't sure until that shield kept Lyds from becoming ghost dust that it was true. It's not like born-dead demons come to life via immigration marriage to humans every day." He started shivering in earnest, his body craving nutrients to replenish all of the energy he'd expelled teleporting, creating clones, and screaming, and continued to expel as his insides began healing from being crushed. He was thankful that at the very least, pain seemed to be on a similar scale as when he was part-ghost.

“Besides, I thought you two sexy dorks would be back with the sandworm before I ran out of time distracting ma. You’re really taking the whole ‘Maitlands 2.0’ thing seriously, huh? It took you two forever to get scared! And, my word  _ Adam,  _ did you make those cowboy hats?” BJ tried putting on an air of scolding, but couldn’t keep the impressed grin from stretching across his face. Adam blushed and ducked his head so the brim of his hat could hide his face before making the hats disappear. Barbara tried to frown at Beetlejuice, but was clearly at least a little endeared by the compliments. Lydia on the other hand, refused to let Beetlejuice change the subject that easily and felt anxiety bubbling up inside of her. 

" _ Leave?  _ You can't just  _ leave,  _ where will you go?" Lydia cried, breaking away from Delia who delicately reached out and gripped her shoulder in lieu of the hug. Charles straightened up as best as he could with his minor concussion, his dad instincts overriding how much his body ached from being thrown. Beetlejuice just frowned at her, confused. 

"You don't have to pretend anymore, Scarecrow. I know you were planning to kill me with that...oddly shaped, sharp thing once I was alive." Stunned silence followed his admission. Purple sprouted in the dull forest of his hair as he averted his gaze from everyone, staring at where his mother had been. Funny, the Maitlands had fallen through the floor to their deaths in the same spot. “I’m not stupid. And honestly, I’m proud of yah. It was pretty hardcore of you, you’d have made a great javelin thrower back in the Crusades or whatever.”

“So...I guess I should be getting along now that my ma’s taken care of. Get out of your collective hair.” He gestured over his shoulder with his thumb, and shuffled on the spot. He also tilted dangerously before righting himself, blinking stars out of his eyes. Despite being a new sensation, he was used to getting himself through worse and therefore didn't think much of his body's signals.

“Now, Mr. Juice,” Charles began, startling everyone. “A lot has happened since we moved here. And before that, I suppose,” he threw a glance to Adam and then Barbara, who were still supporting him. “I think I speak for everyone when I say that we can’t just send you off into the world after all that we’ve been through.”

It looked like every muscle in Beetlejuice’s body stiffened. BJ, who was really feeling a lot of those muscles for the first time, would agree that it was probably every single one of them. His hair became overtaken by stark indigo hues, and faded to white at the tips. He forced himself to laugh, stumbling a few steps backward from the crowd half-circled around him. He tried to stick his hands into his suit pockets, only to realize he was still in his wedding vest and awkwardly had no place to put them, leaving them clenching and unclenching at his sides. Everyone watched him cautiously, confused by his reaction.

“C-C’mon, Chuck, y’all really aren’t going to kill me after all that, are you? It’s been a long day for you humans, why don’t you just-just go to bed and forget all about me or somethin’, huh? I promise, I’m not going to go try my hand at world domination or whatever. And-and the house should return to normal once I’m gone, don’t worry about all the stripes,” he held his hands out in front of him in a placating gesture. They were visibly shaking, though if that was from the exhaustion or the fear, he couldn’t tell. 

“No! No, that wasn’t what I was saying at all,” Charles sighed and rubbed his forehead, avoiding the large bruise he sported. “Delia-?” he prompted, hoping his fiance would be on the same page as him. She immediately came to his rescue.

“Beetlejuice, I believe what Charles was in-tend-ing to say, was that we can’t let you leave without helping you heal and adjust to your new...living state. He was trying to offer to let you stay here, with us!” she chirped, feeling pleased with herself when Charles sagged with relief.

BJ himself just gaped at them. He held up a finger in a ‘wait’ gesture, wagging it several times to emphasize his need for a moment. He paced back and forth a few steps, and Lydia knew if he had the energy he’d have summoned clones to talk to. 

“Dad,” Lydia hissed quietly. “We haven’t even asked the Maitlands if  _ we _ can stay here and share the house!”

“I thought you’d be happy about this,” he hissed back.

“I am! But-”

“Lydia, Charles, Delia. We’d be honored to share our house with you,” Adam interrupted. “And, Barbara and I agree,” he shot her another glance just to reassure himself before he said it out loud and relaxed when Barbara shot him a wry but encouraging smile. “We agree that Beetlejuice should stay here too.”  


Meanwhile, Beetlejuice’s confusion was turning into a full on meltdown. He gripped his hair and pulled on it, trying to get his mind and body under control.

“I’m  _ so confused, _ ” he whispered to himself hysterically. But BJ was always conscious of the audience, and was therefore incapable of whispering  _ quietly,  _ and everyone heard him. Lydia wanted to go to his side, but Delia still firmly held her shoulder. 

“Alright!” Delia chirped. Lydia could tell that if she had her triangle, she would have rung it. As it was, Delia settled for releasing Lydia and clapping her hands twice, sharply. “Lydia, why don’t you take your father upstairs so he can rest. I’m going to call in for takeout, grab some water bottles, and collect the necessary crystals. Adam, Barbara, do you think you could speak with Beetlejuice and convince him to sit down on the couch before he passes out?” she smiled sweetly and reassuringly. 

Babs and Adam glanced at each other, a little reluctant to be put on Beetlejuice duty, but if they could go to the Wasteland and wrangle a sandworm, they could placate the man. Lydia pouted, but in an effort to start treating Delia more like a stepmom, accepted her task and moved to take her father from Barbara and Adam.

" _ Fine, _ " Lydia groaned. "Beetlejuice!" she called, prompting him to look over his shoulder at her with big eyes. "I'm going upstairs with my dad for a while. Everything's fine, just chill out," she ordered, slinging Charles' arm over her shoulder to begin their journey up the stairs.

"Okay," BJ rumbled, glancing frantically between the remaining adults, nowhere near chill. Delia pulled out her cellphone and pointedly turned away, leaving the Maitlands to help Beetlejuice. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are no demon rules!!! I hope y'all vibed with whole the Green Card Thing. This was the concept that inspired me to get writing this, but we're not done yet!


	6. Demons Don't, Maybe Half-Demons Do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beetlejuice continues to struggle with his new living state, and attempts at real communication begin

Once Lydia and Charles disappeared up the stairs, and Delia to make her phone call, the three most supernatural people were left in the living room together. Beetlejuice had frozen, staring over his shoulder at the Maitlands. His hair was changing rapidly again, reminiscent of his first moments of being alive. So much had happened, it was a little difficult for them to remember that Beetlejuice had been alive less than half an hour. He’d done a good job keeping himself together for the fight, but obviously it was all crashing into him again.

“Alright Beetlejuice,” Barbara began, taking a step toward him and reaching out a hand to place on his shoulder. Beetlejuice tracked the movement intensely, as if he expected Babs to hurt him. There was a barely perceptible flinch when she landed her palm feather light on his shoulder. But she was distracted by the heat she could feel radiating off of him that was quickly chasing away the chill in her fingers.

“Let’s sit down, okay? You look worn out,” her usual honey bright tone was slipping back into her voice. It was in her nature to be polite and friendly, even when someone else had hurt her. Since dying she’d found she was a bit more hardened emotionally, more willing to take a stand for herself and Adam, and of course the Deetz’. But Beetlejuice was looking pathetic enough to curb some of the grudge she was holding toward him, at least for now.

“Hah, me? Worn out?” he blew a raspberry. Barbara could feel his muscles trembling. “It takes more than this to wear me out, babes.”

“Well, let’s sit down anyway. I, for one, would like to relax after that whole fiasco,” Adam broke in, stepping up to Beetlejuice’s opposite shoulder. He was fairly certain that if he and Babs made it about one of them, rather than BJ’s perceived needs, he’d go along with it. After a moment of deep internal struggle, he offered his arm to Beetlejuice, just to sweeten the deal.

He was right on both accounts, of course. Beetlejuice couldn’t say no to offered physical contact, and barely hesitated before looping his arm through Adam’s and accepting the support so they could start moving. Adam was similarly taken aback by the heat as Barbara was, but more striking was when BJ’s side pressed against his, Beetlejuice winced and his whole body flinched. Wasn’t that where Lydia had prodded him earlier? Adam and Barbara stopped walking immediately. 

“Beetlejuice, are you hurt?” Adam tilted his head to try and get a better look at Beej’s face. For his part, Beetlejuice studiously avoided eye contact.

“Eh, not really. As hurt as getting smashed by a giant fist into hardwood usually gets you,” he tried to wave off their concern. His now half-human body took that moment to betray him, his knees giving out for a moment. This forced him against Adam further, prompting another pained hiss before he forced himself back upright. “I’m fine.”

Barbara scoffed and took up his other side, gripping his wrist and wrapping his arm around her shoulders, just in case his knees gave out completely.

Being held between his two most/least favorite ghosts, combined with the utter exhaustion and adrenaline crash meant Beetlejuice couldn’t help the purring that rumbled from his chest. Some neon green also sprouted through the dull, yellowish green his hair was currently settled on. Adam stretched his neck so he could meet Barbara’s eyes over BJ’s head and mouthed “is he purring??” at her. Babs was only just able to keep from snorting out loud. 

Together, they maneuvered to the couch. Barbara released her side, letting Adam and Beetlejuice drop onto the couch without her. She stood before them, searching for any obvious wounds. Unfortunately, even with the jacket long discarded, BJ’s wedding outfit not only left no skin uncovered, it was also entirely red. Assuming his blood was red? Either way, it was impossible to get a grasp on his injuries. 

Meanwhile, Beetlejuice was rambling about demons and being dead and not needing the Maitlands to worry about him. Adam wasn’t really listening, trying to think of a way to phrase asking Beetlejuice to take his vest and shirt off that wouldn’t allow for the demon to twist it into a come-on. He wasn’t having a lot of luck, especially since the demon was still pressed against him and gripping his arm. 

“Beetlejuice, you’re not dead anymore, remember? You need medical attention,” Barbara argued, placing her hands stubbornly onto her hips. That made him pause and think for a moment.

“Oh. Huh,” he eloquently hummed. “It still isn’t like.  _ Necessary  _ though _. _ I may be part living human now, but I’m still part demon. I’ll heal ‘ventually.” The slight slurring wasn’t helping his cause. Adam and Barbara just sent each other an exasperated glance.

“Well Beetlejuice, humans heal faster when they’re taken care of properly.” Barbara pulled up and sat on the nearby ottoman to get on level with BJ and Adam. “Let us help you?” She looked Beetlejuice in the eye. It was obvious that he was struggling to maintain eye contact, but was doing his best. His face scrunched up, looking a combination of disgusted by the suggestion and confused as to why she was offering in the first place. The greens in his hair faded and shifted to purple with hints of white at the tips, but the neon green from earlier stuck around in the front. It looked pretty ridiculous, but the Maitlands weren’t prepared to comment on his ever-changing hair color yet.

“Yeah, sure, what’ver,” he finally grumbled, pointedly looking away from Barbara. Without further prompting he unlooped his arm from Adam’s and started fumbling with the buttons on his vest. Adam took the opportunity to scoot away from him a bit. It took a long moment for him to get the buttons undone and the vest shrugged off. Clearly annoyed after dealing with the vest, Beetlejuice simply gripped each side of his shirt near the closure and pulled hard, sending buttons flying around the room. 

“Wasn’t going to wear this shirt again anyway,” he growled at the Maitland’s wide-eyed stares. Both Adam and Babs had to help him get his arms out of the sleeves, the wounds on his side were clearly becoming more painful and restricting BJ’s movement as the pressure from his clothing was removed. The trio stared at his undershirt, unsure of how bad the bruising would be underneath.

“It looks worse th’n it is,” BJ assured them before rolling the undershirt up to just under his chest. In a way, that was true. The blunt-force of getting smashed into the ground had caused extensive dark bruising, and the Maitlands looked at each other with clear worry.

“Beetlejuice, I think we have to take you to the hospital. It looks like you’re bleeding internally,” Adam reluctantly told him. Again, Beetlejuice just waved their concern off and lowered his shirt. 

“Nah, my insides are fixing themselves up. It’s just taking more en’rgy than us’al,” he slurred, his eyelids drooping. “Being alive is. F’ckin’ exhausting,” he closed his eyes entirely and twisted to lay down on his back, head in Adam’s lap. While Adam wasn’t comfortable with the general concept of Beetlejuice touching him or Barbara, this didn’t feel sexual or predatory. Right now, he was just a tired, hurt man looking for comfort. But Adam was deeply aware that that could change.

After getting a nonverbal go-ahead from her husband, Barbara got up and went to the kitchen. Delia was still there, putting the takeout menu she’d used away into one of the drawers. She jumped when she realized Barbara was standing there.

“Oh! How are things proceeding, Barbara?” she asked, pressing a hand to her heart to calm herself. 

“I guess Beetlejuice got really hurt in the fight with Juno. He said that he can heal himself, but he seems to be too low on energy, do you have-?”

“I have the perfect vegan protein nut bars!” she bustled over to the barely furnished pantry, and pulled out three. “I’d normally only recommend one, since we have food on the way, but Mr Juice must be hungry from coming to life and all that running around he did,” she smiled and passed the bars to Babs. 

“Do you...not mind him?” Barbara hesitantly asked.

“Well, Lydia likes him,” she paused and considered while pulling several water bottles from the fridge. “He has a very complicated energy. He’s hurt, and lonely. And the way his mother spoke to him! Horrible. But he also forced my fiance’s daughter into a demonic union, terrorized us, and tried to exorcise you,” she mused neutrally, passing Barbara one water bottle. “So I’m not sure. But Lydia seems to want to give him a second chance. I’m hoping that she and Charles are talking more about it now, and won’t mind me joining them.” Her smile stretched in the way Barbara was starting to recognize as being forced. 

“Why wouldn’t they want you to join them? You’re engaged to Charles, he loves you,” Babs encouraged. Delia looked down and fiddled with the three bottles she was juggling. 

“Yes, I am, and he does. For now. But if Lydia can’t accept me, I...I won’t force my presence on anyone who doesn’t want me there,” she gave a watery smile. 

“Oh, Delia,” Barbara sagged, clutching the items to her chest. “I would hug you, but-” ghosts were unbearably cold to the living.

“It’s alright, Barbara. I can feel your nurturing energy from here.” She dabbed at her eyes.

“Uhm, spirit hug?” Barbara attempted, not sure if mentioning one of “Otho’s” methods would be well-received. But Delia smiled brightly and hugged the water bottles to her chest, mimicking the way Barbara was standing.

“Spirit hug!” she exclaimed, squealing and kicking one foot up in glee. After basking in the moment, she smiled warmly at Barbara before shooting a glance at the kitchen door.

“You should probably get back to Adam and Mr. Juice. And I should get upstairs,” she squared her shoulders and lifted her head, putting on a confident posture.

“Right! You’re right, I’ll see you later, Delia. Thank you for the protein bars. Everything is going to be okay,” she encouraged before turning and rushing back to the living room.

Fortunately, it seemed nothing much had changed in the living room. Beetlejuice was still laying with his head in Adam’s lap, and it seemed to Barbara that he wasn’t even pretending to pay attention to Adam telling him about woodworking. She shook her head fondly and sat back down with them.

“Beetlejuice, sit up. I got you a few protein bars to replenish some of your energy, and some water. It’ll help until the food gets here.”

“Sure thing, Babs,” Beetlejuice sighed, struggling to sit up and off of Adam. He took the offered snack from Barbara, sniffing it and squinting at it before shrugging and going to bite directly into it, wrapper and all. Barbara and Adam frantically called him to stop. He blinked at them confused.

“What, you told me to eat, now yer tellin’ me not to eat, make up your minds,” he whined. 

“Beetlejuice, humans can’t eat wrappers! You have to take the foil off before you eat it,” Barbara admonished him. She snatched the bar back, removing the wrapper entirely before handing it back. He looked like he wanted to argue, but chose to just eat instead. 

“I think you’re going to need to hire  _ us _ to teach  _ you _ about human things, bio-exorcist,” Adam joked. BJ was crunching loudly on the nut bar, thankfully with his mouth closed, and shrugged. 

“Maybe I will,” he mumbled around his full mouth. He swallowed and considered the bar. “What’re your rates? Keep in mind, I don’t have any money.” He popped the rest of the bar into his mouth, his sharp teeth flashing for a split second, before looking seriously between Adam and Barbara.

“Oh! Uhhh,” Adam looked to Babs for support but she was just as taken aback. “We-we’ll get back to you on that.” Beetlejuice nodded absentmindedly, making grabby hands at the other protein bars Barbara had brought. 

“I hope everything tastes as good as this,” he enthused, inhaling another bar after dutifully unwrapping it. 

“Drink some of the water, BJ. You don’t want to eat so fast,” Adam advised. Beetlejuice hummed, but did as suggested, uncapping the bottle and taking a swig. His eyes widened comically and he downed the bottle before the Maitlands could warn him to go slow.

“Oh,” he moaned near pornigraphically. “Is this why humans talk so much about drinking water?” Adam and Barbara laughed, uncomfortable but amused.

“Uh, I guess? Humans are made of water, hydrating feels good.” Adam supplied.

“Careful, Adam, I haven’t hired y’all yet. You shouldn’t supply your services for free,” Beetlejuice pretended to scold with a smirk. His hair was mostly green again.

“How about we do quid pro quo for now? We tell you something about humans, you tell us something about ghosts or demons,” Barbara offered, feeling bold. 

“Hah! Sounds like a great deal,” he crowed, shifting with a minor wince to sit up straighter. “Do I tell you whatever random bullshit I can think of, or are you gunna ask specifics?”

“I’d like to ask,” Adam started hesitantly. “About your hair changing color.” Beetlejuice’s smile instantly fell into a forced smirk. He started to lift his right arm only to stretch his bruised side and abort the action. He switched to his left and ran his hand through his hair.

“What color is it now?” he rumbled, reluctance practically dripping from between his clenched teeth.

“It’s mostly green. There’s some purple.” Beetlejuice hummed and sat back. He crunched on his last protein bar, taking his time chewing.

“It’s connected to my emotions. Different colors, different moods,” he admitted tonelessly.

“What do the colors mean?” Barbara prompted. Beetlejuice finished the protein bar and shook his finger at her.

“Nuh-uh,” he hummed before swallowing. “One question per piece of advice/fact.” 

“Alright, alright,” she acquiesced, Adam lifting his hands up placatingly. Beetlejuice just snorted, leaning his head against the back of the couch and gazing at the ceiling. 

“You guys don’t gotta be so tense around me. I got what I wanted, I’m alive now, people can see me. Once I’m healed up and Lydia’s officially tired of me, I’ll be gone.” The Maitlands looked at each other, and while Adam still seemed hesitant, Barbara’s emotions were close to the surface over this.

“Beetlejuice. You plotted to get me exorcised, held a death game show, and tried to murder Charles. Excuse me if we don’t trust you not to lash out at us,” Barbara pointed out, crossing her arms.

“ _ Hey,  _ you were never in any  _ real  _ danger of getting exorcised! I just had to force Lydia’s hand after she abandoned me. I knew she wouldn’t read the whole passage,” he argued, sitting up again to look at them properly.

“When did she ‘abandon’ you?” Adam asked, his face scrunched up in confusion while Barbara just stared at Beetlejuice.

“When she went for your help with the book! She didn’t care about me anymore, she just wanted her stupid dead mom back.”

“...Is there actually anything in the book for contacting or raising the dead?” 

“No! Once you’re in the Abyss, you’re  _ moved on _ ,” he enunciated.   
  
“So what were you worried about?” Adam pressed.

“She said we weren’t friends. If she figured out I couldn’t help her get what she wanted, she would’ve sent me away.”

“She said you weren’t friends?” Adam continued to prod, growing confused.

“Well,” he stuttered. “She  _ basically  _ did. She asked if the Handbook for the Recently Deceased could be used to get her mom back even though I’d already  _ told  _ her she was in the Netherworld. I asked why she’d want that since moms  _ suck,  _ and then she said she was leaving me! I said I thought we were pals, and she said-,” he pulled a little Lydia sock puppet out from under his discarded vest. It was just a purple, sparkly sock with black yarn hair. “-’ _ what are you talking about?’  _ Before  _ leaving me!”  _

Adam and Barbara stared at him in silence. They maybe shouldn’t be surprised at Beetlejuice’s lack of social understanding at this point, but they were still caught off-guard by this. Adam put his head in his hands. The levels of assumption and miscommunication were astounding.

“Beetlejuice,” Barbara gave a long sigh. “You need to talk about that exact moment with Lydia, okay? I am.  _ Completely _ sure that that isn’t how it went for her. Alright? Can you trust me on that?” she stressed, leaning forward to emphasize her point. 

“Pft, well, I don’t think Lydia will say any different. But if it means  _ that much _ to the most boring sexy ghosts ever, fine.”

“Do you promise? Adam asked into his hands.

“Demons don’t promise. Demons make deals.” Beetlejuice automatically replied.

“Well, maybe half humans do. How about a pinky promise?” Barbara stuck her pinky out. BJ raised an eyebrow but smirked.

“Sure thing, Babs. Put ‘er there!” He hooked his pinky around her’s. “Now put it-” Adam snapped a hand out and grabbed Beetlejuice’s wrist, stopping the movement while Barbara snatched her hand back.

“None of that, don’t ruin this,” Adam warned, looking like his entire spirit was worn. Beetlejuice barked out a laugh, pulling his wrist free from Adam.

“You’re all so  _ grabby _ today!” he exclaimed, clearly enjoying that fact. “First Charles, then Lydia and Dealio, then you two. Must be my new living-allure.”

“I think it’s more the human drive to help and protect one another, mostly from you,” Barbara groused. BJ shrugged.

“Fair enough.”

“I think that stunt means you’re energized enough to talk about something that’s been bothering us. Especially since you’re going to be staying here for a while,” Barbara began, reaching for Adam’s hand. Some of BJ’s hair faded, tinting white. He made a noise of disagreement about staying, but he nodded and said “Go for it, babes.” 

“Adam and I are happily married. We don’t appreciate when you kiss, or grope, or pinch us. Or make sexual comments about us. Friends don’t do that. Only people in consenting, sexual relationships do that.” Barbara tried to be as clear as possible.

“Never?” he asked, sounding disbelieving. “I may have been invisible, Babs, but I’m familiar with human drama, real and TV. People in relationships fuck their friends all the time.”

“ _ Well, _ ” Adam broke in with a cough, “they’re not supposed to. Not unless it’s something both or all people in the relationship agree to before. You have to ask before you get physical with anyone. And we don’t want to be intimate like that with anyone but each other.”

“Well, if you ever want me to stop doing something, just possess me,” he suggested with a shrug.

“ _ No, _ we don’t want to violate your body autonomy for violating our boundaries!” Barbara cried, furiously shaking her head. 

“ _ Ugh, fine, _ I will refrain from inappropriate touching. Can’t promise to stop the comments but I’ll do my best. Can I still call you sexy? That’s just stating facts.” BJ pouted. Barbara gave a small smile and promised that they would think about it.

“Just don’t tease me by pretending to be into me anymore, okay? Looking at you, Mr. ‘I-Want-You-Beej!’” He pointed at Adam, who rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment. 

“We won’t, we promise. I’m sorry we tricked you like that. That was a, a very personal way to bait-and-switch someone.”

“I guess since you guys didn’t actually manage to pull off the ‘switch’ part by killing me, I can forgive you or whatever,” he looked away from both of them, inspecting his nails. They were still black and sharply tipped. His hair was back to being mostly bright green, with some neon green streaks. Adam and Barbara figured that was probably a good thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to version 2.0 of this chapter! I'm still not 100% satisfied, but this version flowed more naturally than the last version, and was way less angsty. We've also officially hit the end of my buffer, so future chapters may be spaced out a few days between C: As always, thank you for reading and commenting!


	7. Deetz 2.0

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charles and Lydia work on reconnecting, and plans start brewing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: brief discussion of canon suicidal thoughts and actions.  
>  1-800-273-8255 is the number for the National Suicide Hotline. Never hesitate to call when you need help.

Lydia helped her father up the stairs, fighting not to look back on Beetlejuice and the Maitlands. Charles was so much taller than her, she had to wrap her arm around his waist and he rested his hand on her shoulder. Trundeling up the stairs together was difficult, but they made it slowly and surely to Charles’ and Delia’s room. 

Thinking of it as her dad  _ and _ Delia’s room was still bizarre for Lydia. Especially considering the decision she had come to in that room the last time she was in it. She shivered involuntarily when they crossed the threshold. She’d have to ask Beetlejuice if that shiver was a legitimate feeling, like her sensing her near death experience or something. She sat next to her dad heavily when they made it to his bed, suddenly exhausted from the day and their journey. They sat in silence for a moment, both just staring out at nothing. 

“So you’re married to a demon now,” Charles began, fighting to keep his tone mostly neutral. 

“I don’t think it’s a real marriage, dad,” Lydia rolled her eyes. “It’s not like there was a minister or a legal contract or something. He isn’t going to get half of my assets.”

“Oh my god, he doesn’t have any assets,” Charles put his head in his hands. “How is he ever going to move out if he doesn’t have money, or a-a social security number?”

“He’d make a good homeless person,” Lydia suggested, only partially joking. “But otherwise, I guess he’s stuck with us.” Charles lifted his head to look at her seriously.

“Do you want him here?” he asked openly. Lydia looked away, fiddling with the puffy sleeve of her ‘wedding’ dress. 

“I liked him before he started tricking me. I don’t know what  _ changed, _ ” she stressed. “We had fun together. I think. I think I needed him, at the time. And as messed up as everything has been, you and I may not have talked without it all. You know, about dead mom.” Lydia took a deep, shuddering breath. “We may have never spoken again, without him.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, growing alarmed.

“I told you, when I found out about you and Delia. That I wanted to throw myself off the roof. And,” she swallowed hard, trying to press the incoming tears away. “And I, I was on the roof when I met him. He stopped me from jumping.” Charles gaped, but Lydia powered on before he could respond.

“I know it wasn’t like, his purpose to stop me, but I don’t know if you or Delia or Adam or Barbara could have talked me down like he did at the moment. I’m happy now that he stopped me, and I’m not against you and Delia being together anymore, but maybe, maybe I still need him around,” she continued. The incoming tears were making the words stick in her throat more and more until Charles interrupted by wrapping his arms around Lydia in a crushing side hug and she finally let go.

On the rare occasion Lydia cried, it was short but intense. She bottled the tears up so tightly that when she finally had to cry, it all poured out in one big, world-encompassing burst. Her dad held her tight, anchoring her through the storm. A few tears of his own reluctantly escaped, as he thought about his daughter being so distraught and disconnected from him that she legitimately thought that taking her own life was her best option.

When it was over, she gently pulled away looking for something to wipe her face with. Charles pulled a handkerchief from his suit pocket and offered it to her.

“I’m so sorry, Lydia. I will work everyday on making sure that I see and hear you, and never leave you to fight those feelings on your own ever again,” he carefully phrased. He didn’t want her to think that he expected her to immediately be past her depression, or that he wouldn’t support her in any future depressive episodes. He was quickly learning that he had to be more clear with his teenage daughter who some days seemed to operate in sarcasm or literacy only. As someone who struggled to express his own emotions, it was going to be a process for both of them moving forwards.

“I know that now, dad,” Lydia promised. “Can I put on that song that mom loved? ‘Jump in the Line’?” Listening to her mother’s favorite songs always made her feel better after crying.

“Of course, Lydia.” She pulled out her phone and let it play through its shitty speaker. She gently bopped to the music, letting it lighten the mood. Charles’ head hurt too much to dance with her, but he found the strength to joke.

“Don’t dance too hard, or everyone else is going to be jealous that we had a dance party without them,” he smirked. When Lydia snorted, he felt like he’d finally done something right that night.

“You’re right, we’ll have to listen to it with them again later.”   
  


“Maybe after dinner,” he suggested.

“What was Delia going to order?” Lydia asked, gratefully taking the segue out of the conversation about her recent suicide attempt.

“I’m not sure. I don’t even know what is around here yet,” he admitted. “It’s not like New York where you can get any type of food whenever you want.”

“You’re right,” she pouted. “I hope she didn’t get only vegan options, I’m too hungry to be satisfied by plants.”

“You said that you approve of Delia and I now?” Charles reluctantly readdressed. It was important to him though, he had to know that his daughter would be happy with the new addition to their life. Especially on top of the three supernatural additions to their life.

“I do,” Lydia stated simply. “She makes you happy, and you make her happy. You both deserve each other. And you know,” she shrugged, “she’s growing on me. Like vines.”

“Is that a good type of growth?” he asked, amused and unspeakably relieved. Lydia nodded seriously.

“Yes. It’s like a very slow hug that doesn’t expect to be reciprocated, and knows that because the house let’s it grow on it, it’s welcome there.”

“Oh, Lydia!” Delia exclaimed from the doorway, struggling to dab tears away while carrying three water bottles. “That was the nicest thing you’ve ever said about me.”

“Oh, hi Delia,” Lydia blushed at getting caught being  _ sentimental,  _ and mostly hid behind her handkerchief. 

“I brought hydration!” Delia easily let the conversation end there, happy with what she’d heard. 

“Is nothing on fire downstairs?” Charles asked, only somewhat joking.

“Everything is untouched. When I was in the kitchen, the Maitlands were stripping Beetlejuice,” she informed them seriously. “They were very affected when he tore his shirt open. The energy didn’t feel very sexual though.” Lydia's face scrunched in disgust while Charles just stared blankly at his fiance, desperately willing himself not to imagine what was happening downstairs in his own house.

“Maybe Mr. Juice is growing on them like  _ moss _ , eh Lydia?” he joked semi-hysterically. 

“ _ Gross,  _ dad. He’s like a weird brother or uncle to me, and the Maitlands are like a second set of parents, I don’t want to think about that.”

“I take it he’s staying?” Delia asked, slowly sitting beside Lydia and sipping at her water to silently encourage them to drink their own waters. Lydia dutifully took a big gulp and Charles took a deep breath.

“Yes, we’re going to give him a shot. It’s important to Lydia, and he maybe does deserve a chance at life.” Lydia elbowed him but smiled at the song reference.

“That’s great!” Delia enthused before sobering. “We’re going to need so many crystals.”

“Maybe Adam, Barbara and I can build some shelves and stuff for them with the supplies in the attic,” Lydia suggested. “You’d have to help us design them though, stepmom.” Delia teared up again and blinked them away near-manically, not wanting to overwhelm Lydia with her feelings. 

“That sounds like a great idea, Lydia,” Charles agreed, putting his hand on Lydia’s shoulder and squeezing.She threw him a small, knowing smile before looking down at her lap. He was so unbelievably proud of his daughter. It was strange to think that just days before, he had regarded her as  _ fragile, _ and worse, even  _ broken. _ Lydia was right, he hadn’t been truly seeing her for months now.

“Beej is going to need something to channel his feelings into, I think. You talked about using crafts for that, Delia, like with my photography.”

“That’s right! I wonder what he would like. I hope some of my life-coach training will help get him settled. As much as that training can help anyone,” she sagged a little. 

“Hey, just 'cause Kevin was an asshole doesn’t mean you don’t know anything about helping people. Even if you couldn’t really help me,” Lydia argued for her but couldn’t stop her honesty.

“I think what Lydia is trying to say, in her teenage way, is that him being a fraud doesn’t, uh, ‘invalidate’ your efforts,” Charles clumsily used terminology he’d heard Delia use. 

“Yeah,” Lydia supported him. “But maybe you should take a college course or something,” she continued. Charles looked at Delia, trying to gauge how hurt she was, but she was looking at Lydia with a small and genuine smile. 

“You’re full of great ideas tonight! Have you come up with any plans regarding Beetlejuice staying here?” Lydia would assume that most people would be bullshitting her with a response like that, and used to think that Delia was too. But she was learning that Delia’s positivity was almost always genuine, or trying to be.

“I was thinking he could stay in the guestroom? Or maybe Adam and Barbara would switch the attic for the guest room. Maybe the basement?”

“Aw, I thought we were going to make a dark room for your photography there?” Delia pouted.

“We can divide it and make me a small area. I don’t think he’s going to care beyond the fact that we’ve given him any space at all.”

“You’re probably right, Lydia. I, for one, think I trust him closer to the ground,” Charles input.

“Him staying in the basement will also give everyone some space from each other,” Delia pointed out. “I’m sure he’s going to need his own room to grow, and we’re going to need some distance between each other when we want to relax.”

“Great, the basement it is,” Charles decided. It would be harder to damage the basement as well, he secretly considered. 

“Anything else?” Delia prompted, but Lydia just shrugged. 

“I haven’t had too much time to think about it,” she admitted. 

“That’s fine! Deciding on giving him a chance, and setting him up in the basement are already hu-mung-ous decisions, Lydia. Hopefully we can talk more about it over dinner,” Delia checked her watch and gasped.

“Which should be here any minute! I should get downstairs before any, uh, socially less acceptable people try to answer the door!” she got up, gave Charles a swift kiss to the cheek and scurried out the door. He sighed dreamily.

“Gross, dad. I will blame your mushiness on your probable concussion and forgive you this once, but you’re on thin ice,” she warned. Charles laughed even though he knew she was completely serious.

“Thank you for forgiving me, Lydia. Why don’t you go get changed? A wedding gown isn’t appropriate attire for a takeout dinner.”

“Awh man, we didn’t even get Delia to tell us what she ordered,” Lydia huffed. “But you’re right, I should save this dress from stains for the next unholy wedding.” She stood up and started to leave.

“Let’s not be planning any more of those!” he called after her, only growing more dismayed when she just laughed in response. What had he accepted into his house?

  
  
  



	8. Dinner Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beetlejuice continues to experience Taste and Emotions for the first time, and more effects of the Green Card Wedding are revealed.

By the time Lydia made it downstairs, changed into comfortable pajamas, pizza had been delivered. She briefly wondered how everyone had kept Beej from scaring the delivery worker, sure that if he had, she would’ve heard the screaming from upstairs.

Charles was awkwardly hovering vaguely between Delia and Beetlejuice. He held a bag of frozen peas to his forehead, which would hopefully help the bruise developing there. An actual ice pack had been strapped with gauze to Beetlejuice’s side where the majority of the bruising was. Lydia could see some of the darkness of the bruises through his tank top. He was also wearing what must be one of Delia’s silk robes, which Lydia chose not to think about. 

“Whoa, you got pretty hurt, huh Beej?” 

“I  _ guess.  _ All of these losers seem to think so, anyway,” he barely shot her a glance, too preoccupied with waiting for pizza. He was bouncing on his heels, and Lydia spotted a line of drool running from the corner of his mouth. But Delia had always insisted that everyone be seated before food was distributed, something about how that facilitated connections between family and enhanced the body’s ability to absorb nutrients. She was also putting crystals out on the table. Lydia was willing to bet that she had planned out where everyone was sitting and placed specific crystals accordingly. Adam and Barbara were helping Delia set up the dining table with paper plates and napkins, but rushed over to Lydia.

“Lydia! How are you doing? We still haven’t heard the full story of what happened while we were gone, did you get hurt too?” Barbara reached as if to take her hands but stopped herself a few inches away, looking Lydia up and down.

“No, no, I’m fine. BJ took Juno’s focus away from me while we waited for you to get back,” Lydia explained. She bridged the distance between her and Barbara and gripped her hands, despite the biting chill and strange staticy feeling that accompanied touching a ghost directly. She couldn’t maintain the contact for long, but she could tell that Barbara appreciated it immensely.

“That’s me, professional distraction, part-time despised son.” BJ pulled out a noise-maker and half-heartedly clacked it a few times before stuffing it back into his pants’ pocket. “Are we ready to eat yet?”

“Almost, Mr. Beetlejuice. Now that Lydia is here, we can get seated!” Delia pulled out her dreaded triangle and rang it. Beetlejuice and Lydia gave each other a glance, and both knew that triangle was going to disappear the first chance they had at getting to it. Delia reached out for BJ’s shoulder and began directing them all to their seats. Charles was placed at one head of the table, with Delia and Lydia at his sides, Beetlejuice beside Lydia, Adam beside Delia, and Barbara and the opposite head of the table. Three pizza boxes were stacked on a cart next to Delia and Charles. 

“Alright!” Delia clapped. “We have plain cheese pizza, a chicken and spinach pizza, and a vegan cheese with banana pepper, vegan sausage, jalapeno pepper, and broccoli pizza.” The Maitland’s faces screwed up in disgust over the vegan pizza, but Lydia and Charles were used to and becoming more open to Delia’s vegan recipes. Beetlejuice was practically vibrating with excitement. Everyone requested what they wanted, Charles served and Delia passed the plates. 

The whole scene felt disgustingly domestic to Beetlejuice, watching a mother and father serving dinner to their family. A burst of self-loathing bubbled in his stomach, his excitement quickly deflating. He didn’t belong anywhere like this. But then Lydia elbowed him when he didn’t immediately grab his plate from her, and Adam directly across the table from him gave a wry smile. He looked at her, in black and purple pinstripe pajamas with a bat shaped shirt collar and dark makeup still smudged around her eyes. He looked at Barbara and Adam, who were willing to put up with him still after all he’d done. He looked at Charles and Delia, worn out and a little bruised, who loved Lydia enough to give a weird, disgusting demon who scared them out of their house a chance.

He stared down at his plate, one slice of each type of pizza. The colors became blurry and smudged, and he felt choked up. God/Satan, was he dying? 

“Beetlejuice,” Barbara murmured, reaching out to rest a hand on his shoulder. 

“That’s me,” he croaked. When he blinked, the world became a little clearer. But he felt water drip down his face the more he blinked. Jezzus, was he  _ crying? _ He felt his face heat with embarrassment over  _ crying  _ about being included in pizza night and was tempted to teleport away from the table. But he knew from experience that powers like that tended not to work when he was emotionally riled up, so he remained rooted to his seat. 

The Deetz' and Maitland's gave each other confused and worried glances. But they could see the silence was quickly mortifying Beetlejuice. His hair was deep purple with magenta spreading down from the tips. But before any of them found what to say, Beetlejuice started devouring pizza at high speed.

“Oh my g-d,” he moaned. “This is so fucking good,” he sobbed. “This is the most quality food I’ve ever had while eating my feelings.”

“It’s just pizza,” Lydia stated in a poor attempt at comforting him. “It’s not even New York pizza.”

“It tastes so good,” he whined, wiping his eyes with a black and white hanky he pulled from the sleeve of Delia’s robe.

“Did things taste different when you were a ghost-demon?” 

“Mostly things that humans don’t eat tasted best,” he explained and blew his nose. “But fresh food tasted like ash. And it sat in my stomach like rocks.”

“Can we never eat food again?” Adam quietly asked, staring down at the empty place in front of him on the table.

“No no, you can,” Beetlejuice began to explain. “But it’s going to take some practice before you’re able to dissolve it from your stomachs. And it’s only going to taste a fraction of what it should. My problem was mostly a demon thing, we’re not supposed to eat human food.”

He suddenly grinned. “Did that count as me giving you ghost advice? Do I get to ask a question now?”

“Oh! Um, I suppose so. That was the deal.” They hadn’t really thought of it going the other way when they made the deal with Beetlejuice to answer questions for receiving advice or answers. 

“What are you talking about? A deal?” Charles interjected, wanting to stay on top of the shenanigans in his house as much as possible.

“We agreed with Beetlejuice that we would help him learn how to be human, and he would help us learn how to be ghosts, and in return we could ask each other questions,” Barbara elaborated.

“That sounds like a greeeat idea,” Lydia snarked, smirking at the Maitland’s. Adam stuck his tongue out at her and she responded in kind.

“What have you learned so far?” Delia asked.

“Beetlejuice told us his hair is connected to his emotions, in return for us teaching him not to eat foil wrappers,” Adam deadpanned.

“Hey, I could eat them before! Foil tastes sparkly.” BJ’s hair was more green next to his dark roots, but the tips were still a steady shade of magenta.

“What does each color mean, Beej?” Lydia tried to act innocent, but Beetlejuice wasn’t having it.

“Nuh-uh, it’s my turn to ask sexy 1 and 2 a question, not interrogate BJ time. That will be later, I have no doubt.” Lydia raised an eyebrow at him. He wasn’t exactly known for his ability to keep his mouth shut when asked a direct question, or even when something was said that made him think of something disturbing.

“I do agree that we have a lot to talk about after dinner, Mr. Juice. But it will be an open, kind discussion, not an in-ter-o-ga-tion,” Delia soothed.

“If you say so, Depiglio,” Beetlejuice resumed eating but at a much slower pace. Lydia snorted at Delia’s confused and offended expression at her latest bizarre name.

“That one wasn’t even close,” Delia pouted. 

“Well if you guys aren’t going to call me by  _ my _ name and keep calling me ‘Mr. Juice,’ I’m not gunna properly remember  _ your _ name.” He stuck his tongue out at her. 

“Have you even tried saying your name yet, Beetlejuice?” Lydia stepped in before Delia could start giving advice and Beetlejuice could continue being rude to her stepmom.

Everyone turned to look as Beetlejuice shot up from the table, ignoring the pain the movement caused. He took a deep breath, hesitated for a second before turning to Lydia and sticking out his hand.

“Hi! I’ll be your guide! My name is **Beetlejuice!”** he gasped, retracting his hand to excitedly wave his arms around. “Beetlejuice! My name is Beetlejuice, _Beetlejuice,_ ** _Betelgeuse!_** _”_ The air in the room shifted at last call of his name. He jumped up and down in his exhilaration and did a little dance, before flopping back into his seat when it made him dizzy and wore away at his still minimal energy.

“Wow,” he breathed, throwing an arm over his forehead like a swooning maiden. “It’s been  _ centuries _ since I could say my own name.”

"Do you why Juno cursed you using your name?" Lydia asked. It was something she had been wondering about since she’d met him.

"What better way to punish your son for being lonely than to make him unable to introduce himself?" He gave a sharp, self-deprecating grin. "Ma never liked the non-demon parts of me, like me having any form of emotion. Which is a huge overreaction if you ask me, considering the emotions I felt as a ghost were  _ nothing  _ compared to what I can feel now."

"But Beetlejuice is your middle name? Why not go by your first name?" Adam asked, looking for clarity. Beetlejuice leveled him with a deadpan glare.

"Do I look like a 'Lawrence' to you, A-Dog?" he groused. Adam laughed self-consciously and rubbed the back of his neck.

"Fair point."

“Names are a big deal to demons. And Beetlejuice,” he savored the word on his tongue, “is  _ mine.”  _ He sighed and felt like a massive weight he hadn’t realized was there was lifted from his chest.

The rest of dinner continued without much note. Beetlejuice continued to moan pornographically around his food, prompting Lydia to occasionally make exaggerated gagging noises, but Charles resolutely ignored them and Delia just seemed happy that Lydia was cheerful. Adam and Barbara whispered to each other, since they couldn’t eat yet. They were secretly celebrating the fact that Beetlejuice seemed to have forgotten that they owed him an answer to whatever question he asked.

But dinner couldn’t last forever, and eventually it was time to Talk. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter should be the last! Unless I decide to add an epilogue. I may do a sequel, since this little alternative universe is too fun to not continue playing in, but we're coming to the conclusion of this set-up series. 
> 
> The next chapter is 90% written, so I'll see you folks tomorrow C;


	9. Mama, I'm Goin' Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The inevitable "how did we get here?" talk commences

When it was clear that everyone was finished eating and there was no other way around it, everyone emotionally squared up to talk about everything that happened. Frank and honest conversation wasn’t any of their fortes, but it was necessary if they were going to understand each other and why things happened the way they did, and begin to move forward.

“Alright Bee-tle-juice,” Delia took up the burden of initiating the talk. “We know you’re still...unstable from only gaining emotional depth earlier today. So if you need to take a break at any time, just let us know.” He was tempted to say he was too ‘emotionally unstable’ to have this conversation in the first place, but he knew from experience that putting off cleaning out wounds only made them fester and become infected.

“Sure, Deee- _ De _ lia.” He made a point to actually say her name properly since she referred to him properly, even if it was in her weird way. It earned him a bright smile from the strange woman, and he resolutely ignored the bubble of happiness that inspired.

“You up for this, Scarecrow? Baring the gritty details of our completely platonic love affair, in front of four of your five parents?” Beetlejuice tried to tease her in a last ditch attempt at delaying the conversation at least another few minutes. This was when they decided he wasn’t worth it after all and kicked him out, right? His hair fading to a grey tone of green with streaks of white betraying his fear. But Lydia didn’t fall for it.

“You promise not to lie? No more bait and switches?” she asked, squinting intensely at BJ. He stuck his pinky out at her.

“Only if you promise too, babes.” Lydia scowled at him, but decided it would be easier to just agree than argue with him. They linked pinkies, shook once, and nodded at one another. 

“But just cause you may disagree with how I saw things, doesn’t mean I’m lyin’,” he stated firmly in his own defense.. 

“From what Adam and I saw, and what we spoke about with Beetlejuice earlier, what happened is pretty twisted up. We’re going to need a scorekeeper or stenographer to keep it all straight.” A door slamming open made the whole room jump.

The skeleton ensemble poked their heads out from the storage room beneath the stairs, as if sensing an opportunity to help. They scrambled out of the closet that was much too small for all four of them, and pulled out an extra wide dry-erase board after them. They wheeled it around beside the table, two kneeling down to hold the legs steady, and two taking up either side of the board brandishing markers. Beetlejuice growled at them that he wasn’t going to forget anytime soon that they’d hidden while Juno was there, but they ignored him.

“Okay, I guess that takes care of that,” Barbara sat down, a bit in shock.

“Lydia, why don’t you start?” Delia suggested, taking the whole situation in stride. Lydia huffed, but stood up and studied the skeleton on the right who was holding a purple marker.

“We don’t have to start where Beetlejuice and I met, right?” she hesitantly asked, crossing her arms in discomfort as she stood before her family. She’d already admitted what had been going on with her to her dad. And maybe Delia, depending on how long she was by the door? Either way, she wasn’t at all eager to rehash her suicidal episode again today.

“No no, Lydia, go ahead and start after you summoned Mr. Beetlejuice,” Charles hurriedly assured her, gripping Delia’s hand. Lydia sighed with relief and turned to the board.

“So, we were scaring people who came to the house," she began. The skeleton dutifully scribbled down what she said. "Beetlejuice was teaching me how to act like a ghost, and told me that ghosts can’t leave their homes. He showed me the Handbook. I asked if the book could help me talk to my mom, since I thought that she might've been left at our house in New York. But he didn’t answer me,” she looked to BJ to continue. He wagged a finger at her.

"Nuh-uh! I told you she was in the Netherworld, so she'd already passed into the Abyss."

"You only said she was in the Netherworld. I didn't know that meant she was  _ gone- _ gone! You never told me about the Abyss," Lydia growled. Beetlejuice stared at her, processing and playing back what exactly he’d said to her. It was a good thing that he’d studied the musical’s script under the table during dinner.

"Oh," he glanced at Adam and Barbara, remembering how they’d reacted earlier. “Whoops.”

The skeletons added "thought he told her dead-mom was gone" to Beetlejuice's side, and a line drawn to Lydia's previous statement about not getting an answer. They put "MISCOMMUNICATION" in red block letters above the line, then gestured for Lydia to continue. No one chose to ask how the green marker seamlessly became a red marker.

"Beetlejuice talked about his mom a bit while I tried to get the book open-"

"I was talking about her being a literal demon and sucking ass-!" His assigned skeleton added that to his side, despite the interruption.

"But when I asked him directly, he explained that since I wasn't recently deceased, I couldn't open the book.”

“What book is this?” Delia raised her hand and asked.

“The Handbook for the Recently Deceased,” Beetlejuice supplied enthusiastically. “Do yah want a copy?” he leered at her while she furiously shook her head.

“No, I don’t think that will be necessary, thank you Beetlejuice, you sometimes scare me.” Beetlejuice preened like she had praised him. “Lydia, please, continue!”

“He wouldn't open it for me for some reason, so I went to take it to Adam and Barbara." The skeletons turned to Beetlejuice to fill in.

"I wouldn't open it 'cause it wouldn't help you. There's nothing in the Handbook for summoning ghosts who've passed on, it's just boring bullshit about how much danger newly-dead ghosts face in the living world." Adam and Barbara sat up straighter in their chairs, anxiously looking at one another and making a mental note to take the time to read the handbook.

"Why didn't you  _ say _ that?" Lydia threw up her hands, exasperated.

"I didn’t know I had to! I thought you knew that there wasn’t a way to summon your mom. And you wouldn't explain why you wanted her there in the first place!"

“Because she’s my  _ mom _ ,” Lydia stressed like it was obvious.

“ _ So?” _

“Not all moms are like  _ yours _ , Beetlejuice!”

“Moms are like, practically universally hated! All you see on TV is them being naggy, mean, nit-picky witches who ruin their childrens’ self-esteem, and refuse to let go of husbands they don’t even like and who don’t like them! And don’t get me  _ started _ on stepmoms. No offence, Delia,” he shot her a glance and vaguely pet the air in her direction. 

“That’s-it’s-My mom wasn’t  _ like that, _ alright? TV depends on tropes, often misogynistic, racist, or ableist tropes, to get ratings. They’re not based on what is true for most people, okay?” Lydia struggled to get her point across, and found she had to open up if she wanted her friend to understand. 

“I love her. She was practically my whole world. She understood me like no one else does. I miss her everyday, and I know I’ll  _ never _ stop missing her. So when I found out ghosts were real,” she threw a glance at Barbara and Adam, “and that demons were real,” she gestured at Beetlejuice, “I had hope that I hadn’t  _ lost her forever _ !”

Charles stood up and wrapped an arm around Lydia’s shoulders. The skeletons regarded one another meaningfully before writing “MOMMY ISSUES” in the middle of the board, with arrows pointing to each side. 

“I, uh, I’m sorry, Lydia, I didn’t. I didn’t realize that she, uh, meant that much to you,” Beetlejuice stumbled out, anxiously flexing his hands. Lydia released a long sigh and made a point to relax her tense muscles.

“It isn’t okay, but I forgive you. You didn’t know me before a few days ago, didn’t really know anyone. I understand why you didn’t get it.” She recrossed her arms resolutely, keeping her eyes on the ground.

“I’m still sorry,” he mumbled. Lydia sighed again and stepped away from her father to hug him briefly. 

“You smell really bad,” she informed him, backing away.

“I  _ know,  _ right?” he grinned. “I had no idea until I was alive, but I really  _ reek _ .”

“Should we stop for the night, Lydia?” Delia gently asked, beckoning Charles to sit back down.

“No, I want to know why Beetlejuice tricked me into starting the exorcism on Barbara,” Lydia persisted.

“I did that because you said we weren’t friends,” he stated simply. To him, it  _ was _ that simple.

“I never said that,” she argued. Beetlejuice groaned and pulled out the sock puppet he’d used to illustrate this same conversation with the Maitland’s.

“You were running up the stairs to the attic. I asked if you were leaving me, you said ' _yeah,'”_ the puppet chimed in. “‘ _I have to get the book open.’_ Then I said,” he pulled out another sock puppet, a green and black striped sock with angry googly eyes. “‘But I thought we were pals!’ And you said, ‘ _what are you talking about?”_ before _leaving_ me!” His hair sprouted purple, taking over what was left of the green.

Lydia stared at him, gobsmacked. The Maitland’s gazed at her sympathetically when she looked to them for support.

“I only said that because I didn’t understand why me going to Adam and Barbara for help meant that we weren’t friends!”

“You found out I couldn’t help you and decided I was useless,” he insisted.

“Friendship doesn’t depend on how much use you can get out of the other person,  _ Beetlejuice, _ ” she explained, her face scrunched up in disgust at the very idea.

“It doesn't?” he asked honestly. Charles facepalmed.

“No, Beetlejuice, it doesn't,” Delia injected to support her step-daughter. He wrung his hands nervously and refused to look at anyone.

“Oh. If you say so. That’s how people have always treated me,” he shrugged.

“You tried to have Barbara exorcised because you thought I didn’t want to be your friend anymore?” Lydia stressed, not feeling so forgiving.

“I knew you wouldn’t  _ actually  _ exorcise her. Besides, the exorcism version in the Handbook is watered down. It’s just so newly dead ghosts can recognize the phrases and know to get the fuck out of dodge if they hear them. Trust me,” he glanced at Barbara for a millisecond, “real exorcisms hurt way worse.”

“You shouldn’t have hurt her just because you thought I’d hurt you.”

“Babs and I already talked about this, Lyds,” he tried to brush off.

“You explained, but you never apologized,” Adam rebutted. Beetlejuice looked to Barbara, and tried to really look and understand what she was feeling. Even though he knew other exorcisms would’ve been more painful than the one she experienced, didn’t mean it was a cake walk or even a kinky type of pain. He hadn’t apologized earlier because he still felt that it was a necessary evil. But now, learning that Lydia hadn’t just tossed him aside for her and Adam, it was becoming clear that it had been cruel and shocking to them all.

“You’re right,” he reluctantly admitted. “I’m sorry, Barbara. I was uhhh, Delia-?” he floundered for her support.

“You were  _ lashing out _ unfairly, due to your sense of be-tray-al and pain,” she input.

“Yeah! What she said. I’m sorry I hurt you like that,” he looked her in the eye. “Both of you,” he looked back to Lydia. Barbara had her arms crossed, largely closed off from the topic of conversation, but she nodded.

“I accept your apology, Beetlejuice. Maybe I can forgive you after you work on becoming my friend again.” Normally, Beetlejuice would have been entirely disheartened by that statement, but the idea that they had been friends before made his heart leap. He grinned but it quickly faded as he thought back on the question at hand -  _ why _ had he tricked Lydia in the first place.

“But I didn’t do it just to hurt you. I thought if we weren’t friends anymore, then I needed to use the situation to my advantage to become alive before you kicked me out. Because I couldn’t go back to being alone and invisible again.” 

“The only way to do that was marrying a teenager?” Charles quirked an eyebrow at him.

“Stop thinking of it like marriage, Chuck,” BJ flapped a hand at him. “Lydia vouched for me to the living world, she okayed my green card. It’s the only way I know of for a demon to have even a chance at humanity. At the same time, it gave Lydia power over me, remember? She can kill me, and no Nether creature but me can hurt her. And I’m not gunna hurt her!!” he quickly assured.

“I wasn’t going to kick you out, Beej. I wasn’t going to let my dad or Kevin and his box thing get rid of you either. I want you around,” Lydia insisted. Beetlejuice tried to analyse her, but he wasn’t feeling particularly trustful of his ability to read people right that moment. He read over the board. He looked at the four adults on Lydia’s side who hadn’t jumped in to insist that he was leaving.

“You’re...not lying?”

“I’m not lying.” She extended her pinky out to him, and he only hesitated a second to link his to her’s. “I want you to stay, dummy.”

“So. So I almost blew up everything,” he started slowly. “...for nothing? Because I misunderstood you?” Everyone looked at him with largely sympathetic expressions. Even the four skeletons, lacking eyes or facial expressions of any kind, looked at him with evident pity. He took his hand back from Lydia, the contact suddenly too much.

“That’s the by-and-large of it, Beetlejuice,” Adam gently confirmed. 

“Wow,” Beetlejuice dropped into his chair in shock. “I suck.”

“You do,” Lydia confirmed. “But only when you have your head up your ass.” Charles went to scold her for the language but decided it wasn’t worth it. Lydia dragged her chair close to BJ’s and sat beside him, doing her best to make eye contact with him.

“Despite it all, you’re still my friend. I want to help you learn how to be human. I think you could be pretty cool if you understood what emotions are and how they work. Maybe then you’ll suck only part of the time.”

“So I’m really staying here?” his eyes were the size of dinner plates. 

“Yes, Mr. Beetlejuice,” Charles affirmed. “We spoke about it, and planned to offer you the room in the basement.”

“It’s more of a cellar, really,” Adam insisted, ever defensive of the house.

But Beetlejuice barely heard him, practically vibrating with happiness. His whole head of hair turned neon green, and his smile was so wide it vaguely hurt his face. Fireworks went off behind him as he stood and enveloped Lydia in a bear hug, spinning her around while she squealed. He put her down so she was standing on his chair, before reaching for Charles. 

He just barely remembered what Adam and Barbara said about ‘intimately touching people,’ so instead of kissing him full on the mouth, he grabbed his face and pulled him down to leave a wet smooch on his cheek. Charles grunted with disgust and wiped his face with his napkin, but there was a hint of a smile on his face. Beetlejuice took Delia’s hand and spun her closer to Adam and Barbara, his arms stretching in length to securely wrap around the three of them, and lift them into the air. His own squealing drowned out theirs.

_ "I've got a home!" _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Home" by Eddie Perfect blares in background
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! An extra special thank you to everyone who left comments, you made my heart do the smiley emote each time.
> 
> I plan to do oneshots in this universe. I didn't get to touch as much as I wanted on Beetlejuice experiencing his new senses, so look forward to that in the future!

**Author's Note:**

> I just wanted to lean really hard on Beetlejuice being newly alive! This follows the (canon? fanon?) concept of Beej being born-dead! And the fanon of him being mostly colorblind, I thought that was very interesting.


End file.
